ROBERT ZEMECKIS

We don't function well as human beings when we're in isolation.

I'm addicted to documentaries. That's all I watch on television.

No matter how many obstacles that are thrown in our path, there are ways to except them and to live through them.

We are ultimately alone in that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

In the next couple of years, part of every film's process is going to be to adjust the images. And it'll be to change the color of an actor's tie or change the little smirky thing he's doing with his mouth. Or you can put in more clouds or move the tree a little bit.

Understand life's mysteries - as mysteries to be lived.

I could never be like Hitchcock and do only one kind of movie. Anything that's good is worthwhile.

You can't legislate sobriety.

I think that technological tools that filmmakers use to tell stories, in a perfect world, need to become invisible. When it's brand new and it's never been seen before and you're birthing this stuff, it's very much on people's minds.

I'm very concerned that we don't make movies that are original anymore.

I'm really tired of making these huge, over-$100 million movies where they literally mean life and death for a studio. It's really rough making these expensive movies. Everyone is hysterical.

Most actors that I work with are wonderful. Jodie Foster or Tom Hanks will make anything work.

I don't know any filmmaker who can deconstruct their own work.

Working with actors who are directors is magnificent. Because they understand the art form intimately, and they know exactly how everything works.

You just have to do your art. Nothing can stop you.

When I was a kid, I loved action, war, horror, monster movies... Anything with special effects. I was fascinated with how'd they do that.

I grew up on Chicago's South Side in a working-poor family, so I watched everything on television. It was like my window on the world. But we also went to the movies pretty regularly - mostly on Tuesdays, because that was Ladies Night, and my mom could get in for free.

I think the only thing filmmakers can do is try to make good movies and make them as long as they allow us to keep making them. But at the end of the day, it is a business, and if audiences don't care, there's nothing we can do. It'll just go away, I guess.

I can't see any reason why a dramatic story can't be in 3-D. I think 'Lawrence of Arabia' would have been fabulous in 3-D.

I'm in a constant conflict about having to make a movie for the big and the small screen at the same time, stylistically. So I just basically make it for the large screen.

I have no complaints about 'The Walk.' I made it, and I'm very happy with what happens.

Favorite movie lists are impossible for me to do.

When they invented the Steadicam, every movie had to have a fight in a stairwell. Whenever there's a new thing, it's abused until artists realize what a Steadicam as a tool can be. And now I defy people to be able to see Steadicam shots, because we know how to do them and make them invisible.

It's the most unrealistic thing you can do to shoot a close-up, and it's the most unrealistic place you can be as a performer. And yet actors grouse about having to do visual effect shots, but they love doing close-ups.

'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and 'Used Cars' were absolute failures at the box office. Complete disasters. I learned some sad news: it's not an automatic thing that, if you make a good movie, everyone wants to see it.